How To Rename Metrics Without Impacting Somebody's Observability

This conference talk explores strategies for renaming metrics without disrupting observability systems in cloud-native environments. Presented by Bartłomiej Płotka (Google, Prometheus maintainer) and Arianna Vespri (Independent, Prometheus client_golang maintainer), the 31-minute session addresses the challenges that arise when metric names and labels need to be changed. Learn how metrics have evolved into critical API contracts between instrumentation and consumers, and why changes to these metrics can cause major downstream breakages. Discover renaming strategies for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry users, and explore existing conventions and frameworks for stable metric versioning that could be implemented in future instrumentation. The presentation offers valuable insights for anyone working with cloud-native observability who needs to manage metric evolution while maintaining system reliability.